Happy
by missnikkinote
Summary: Happy's social worker looks back on her memories of her growing up in the foster care system.


Some people can't help but think about death; when their time will come, how they will go. I was never one of those people. But if I had given it some thought I don't think I'd have pictured it like this, lying in a hospital bed, no friends or family to come visit me, nothing to do with my time but think and wait.

But I'm not upset. I made my choices and I stand by them. The children whose burdens I was able to ease in even the slightest make all the rest of it worth it. My husband leaving me because of the ungodly hours I worked and falling out of touch with my friends because more often than not I'd choose to spend my free time poring over case files as opposed to going out with them.

That's not to say I don't have regrets though. When I started working as a social worker I swore I wouldn't let any of my cases fall through the cracks. But I made mistakes which I'm not proud of. At some point my work became more about quantity than quality. I took on more and more cases because I wanted to help as may kids as I could until suddenly I wasn't able to give all of them the level of attention and care that they deserved. And if I'm being honest with myself, maybe it was easier not getting too far involved and telling myself I was doing good, just look at how many lives I was improving.

The worst part is, maybe the kids that wound up getting pushed to the background were the ones who needed help the most. The troubled and angry ones who, as you carefully direct your attention elsewhere, pull further and further into themselves, so much so that you don't even realize that maybe it's partly your fault five-year-old Happy no longer embodies the nickname you gave her years ago.

Happy Quinn. What I wouldn't give to start over with her. To give her the fair chance that every child deserves. When I met her she was only two and her dad had left her with a nurse at St. Luke's. "Find her a good home," he'd said. She had stopped crying by the time I got to the hospital but her face was still blotchy and her eyes still red. Before we could leave she insisted we walk through the entire parking lot. I could tell she was tired but still she kept going, taking in every vehicle parked there that night. I'm not sure what she was looking for, if anything, or if she was simply stalling because she didn't want to leave with me. Either way I obliged, but once we'd made it all the way around and she asked if we could go through once more I told her that no, we couldn't, it was time to leave. Later that night she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

A few days later when I picked her up from the family she'd been staying with for her first few days as a ward of the state I was surprised to find that she no longer seemed at all upset. In fact, she seemed downright cheerful. I'll admit I was a little taken aback. Kids usually take longer than just a few days to adjust after being taken away from their parents, and even more when their parents voluntarily give them up. But after my initial shock subsided I realized that this could be good for her. Happy was at that age at which she might be able to eventually forget her life with her dad. It was a bittersweet thought. If only I knew then just how wrong I was.

It was during that five hour drive to the foster home where she'd spend the next eight months that I first called her Happy. While it can sometimes be hard to have a conversation with a two year old, I usually do try my best. But whenever I would pause in my speech and look at the little girl in my rear-view mirror she wouldn't say a word. Instead she'd just give me a big smile.

"Mr. Howe said you guys had blueberry pancakes for breakfast. That sounds really tasty. Were they yummy?"

And there's a smile in my rear-view mirror.

"And I like what Mrs. Howe did with your hair. It's really pretty."

Another adorable smile.

"You know, you have to be one of the happiest little girls I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."

And there it is, right on cue.

"I may just start calling you Happy all the time. How does that sound?"

Smile.

Really I had just been teasing. I didn't expect it to stick. But when we arrived at her new temporary home and her new foster mother leaned down to introduce herself, the response she received was, "Hi, I'm Happy Quinn."

"Happy? Lou, did you misread the file?"she asked in a teasing tone.

"No Rita, I didn't. Look, right here, Quinn comma–"

"But really it's Happy now," the young girl interrupted looking up at me with that smile once again.

"Well, okay then. Happy it is." And with that Lou and Rita led us into their home.

A few hours later I drove away feeling good about the bright future I was sure this young girl would have. Happy Quinn, though still so young, was already incredibly sweet, charming, and seemed to really like other people. Suffice it to say, I have trouble reconciling that sweet image with my more recent memories of her.

* * *

I next saw Happy eight months later. Once again we were meeting in a hospital waiting room but this time she didn't shed a tear. She and her foster parents had been in a serious car accident. Lou had died on impact and Rita was currently in a coma. Happy, thankfully, was mostly unharmed and had just needed a few scans.

"How are you feeling?" I asked as I sat down next to her in one of the hard plastic chairs.

"Hungry," she answered matter-of-factly.

"Well, it's probably been a while since you last ate. We're going to go get you some dinner real soon. How about how you're feeling about what happened tonight? It's important to talk about stuff like this," I said gently. I didn't want to push her, but at the same time I needed her to know that she wasn't alone.

Happy looked up at me with a curious expression on her face. "I guess it's too bad this happened today. Lou was really close to finishing the model airplane he was working on."

Though I was a little taken aback by her response I didn't miss a beat. Death was a very difficult concept for children to understand and they all reacted to it differently. "It's okay to miss him and to feel sad–"

"I'm not sad," Happy said cutting me off. "Everything that's alive dies. That's just the way it works. So there's no point in being sad."

That was when I first started to realize that Happy Quinn was not like most other kids and I was a little unsure of how to respond. I was being careful in thinking of what I'd say next and so was completely caught off guard when my thoughts were interrupted by her asking, "Did you call my dad yet?"

"W-what?" I stammered. So much for not missing a beat.

"You need to tell him where I'll be next so he knows where to find me when he comes back."

And all of a sudden she was every child in the foster care system, infant to teen, smart, athletic, shy, outgoing. They were all the same in that what they needed most was just to know that they still mattered.

"Sweetheart," I started.

"It's Happy, remember?"

"Happy–" I was cut short by the appearance of a doctor who had come to discuss Happy's scans with me. She was okay, but I guess wanting to be thorough, the doctor took his time explaining everything to me. By the time he had finished and I turned back to Happy she had fallen asleep, curled up in one of the waiting room chairs.

I carried her to my car and didn't wake her up until we reached her next new home. She was still groggy and half asleep and apparently no longer hungry. It had been a long day for her and she needed rest. She didn't have much to say as she met her new foster parents and I said goodbye. Not having forgotten her question from earlier I was slightly ashamed in my relief at having avoided that conversation for the time being. I told myself that there was no point in breaching the subject now as she was clearly too tired and that it'd be better for everyone to wait until a later date. Hindsight being what it is I realize these were merely excuses I made to ease my own conscience.

* * *

The family I had left her with had never fostered a child before, but I was sure that they'd be great at it. They had kids of their own who I met during the home screening and together they were the textbook example of a perfect family. Maybe that should have been my first red flag.

But I was always incredibly busy and my workload was seemingly endless. So could I really be blamed for not picking up on the hidden peculiarities in such a happy home when every day there where kids in far more dire circumstances whose need for my attention I felt was more pressing?

Yes, of course I could, but I wasn't.

To my credit, I did check in on Happy to see how she was doing. But how did I always miss the clues? Was my mind on something else?

The first visit was a scheduled one and things appeared to be going pretty well. Happy didn't seem to be too close to her foster parents or siblings but that was understandable. Developing new attachments takes time and is especially difficult for children in the foster care system whose lives are constantly being uprooted. Still, everyone seemed to get along fine, and Happy was healthy, behaving well, and was especially excited that she'd be starting kindergarten soon. In fact things were going better than the average first home visit – at least until dinner that is.

When the father announced that dinner was ready I felt like there was some sort of shift in the air, but I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. And really, with how well things had been going, I don't think I wanted to see that something was wrong. It was probably just my imagination that the parents seemed nervous. And where was Happy going?

"To my room."

"Don't be rude, Happy. It's dinnertime. That means we all sit down together to eat, you know that."

I must have imagined the confused look on Happy's face as her foster mother guided her to a seat at the dinner table as well as the similarly confused look the little boy gave when his father asked him to hand the peas to Happy. Surely it was my presence that was causing the conversation to seem stilted and forced. I was an unusual addition to their family dinner. Yes, that was it.

The second time I dropped by was for a surprise visit. Unfortunately, as can happen with such unannounced check-ins, the family wasn't home. Still, I waited in my car for a few minutes to see if I could catch them as they came home. No such luck. A neighbour who stopped by my window to ask me if I was lost informed me that the family had gone to Legoland. It was too bad I had missed them but I was glad to hear that Happy was getting to have fun new experiences.

My third visit was the postponed surprise check-in. It was around dinnertime when I got there and I was glad to see lights on inside the house. Upon answering the door the father expressed his surprise in seeing me.

"Well, that is the point of a surprise visit," I said laughing.

After letting me inside he informed me that the family was eating dinner, but Happy was eating in her room because she wasn't feeling well. I stopped him from going to get her. There was no need to make her come down if she wasn't up to it. I'd just go up to her room to see her.

Did he seem worried as I headed for the stairs? Of course he did, Happy was sick, any good foster parent would be worried.

Happy could barely contain her excitement as she showed me the third grade math workbooks her kindergarten teacher had supplied her with. She was speaking a mile a minute as she told me about her new favourite place, the public library, where she had checked out numerous books about machines which were currently littered all over her bedroom floor. I was amazed, as anyone would be, as I realized the incredible level of her intelligence. It was a lot to take in and with Happy talking non-stop I had a hard enough time keeping up with everything she was saying, so it could be understood that I may have missed the fact that she didn't seem at all under the weather.

When I asked her if she had enjoyed going to Legoland she didn't seem to know what I was talking about.

"I came by last Saturday but you guys weren't home. Your neighbour said you went to Legoland."

Was that realization dawning on her face? And hurt maybe? No. When have I ever been good at emotional perception?

"Oh." She paused pressing her fists to her eyes. She was probably tired. "No. That's their mistake. I was at the sitter's on Saturday."

Why didn't I ask if the other kids had spent the day with the baby sitter as well? Why didn't I ask the parents about where everyone had been the previous weekend? Well, maybe their neighbour really had been wrong about the family's whereabouts. It was possible. Really though, it was probably the same reason I didn't ask Happy why she wasn't eating with the rest of the family. Because she wasn't sick. I knew it, she knew it, the parents knew it. But none of us said anything. And a little later when I headed back to my car we all smiled and waved.

I didn't check in on them again. There was no need. Everything was going well. I had other cases that needed my attention.

* * *

It was over a year later that I next saw her and despite the fact that she was still sticking with the name I wasn't tempted to call her happy. I was picking her up and taking her to her next foster home. According to her now former foster parents, over time she'd become too much to handle. Apparently her interest in machines hadn't waned and in her free time she'd taken to disassembling various home appliances to see how they worked.

"It's not my fault," she said from the backseat of my car. "No one ever wanted to do anything with me so I found things to do by myself."

I guess I could see her point.

"Regardless, you broke things that didn't belong to you."

Did I really just discount her obvious feelings of exclusion like that?

"I didn't break them, I took them apart carefully. And I always put them back together when I was done."

She was very gifted. Curiosity and exploring were part of growing up. Could we really punish a child for seeking out learning experiences that challenged her?

"After the first time with the toaster they very clearly told you not to do it ever again. There are rules in place for a reason."

"The reason they gave was that they're the adults so they're in charge. I don't think that's a good reason."

"It's not a good reason, but that's just the way the world works."

"That's a pretty sucky reason too," she mumbled.

"I heard that."

"Good."

* * *

Not by choice, Happy and I saw a lot more of each other after that. As she got older it became increasingly difficult to place her and even more difficult for her to hold on to a placement. Every time we spoke she seemed gradually angrier and more closed off.

"What happened, Happy? This violent behaviour isn't like you." Little did I know, it would become what she was known for.

"She wouldn't stop saying that my real dad doesn't love me. I know it's true but I got tired of her voice."

Do I reprimand the inappropriate behaviour or confront the feelings of rejection?

"She shouldn't have said that, but it doesn't give you the right to hurt her. Violence is never okay."

It's true. Violence or abuse of any kind isn't okay. So why is it that the next time I see her and she's trying to hide tears as her foster brother reaches toward her while saying goodbye, I tell myself it's just because she's going to miss him. But she flinched away from him. No, I'm sure I imagined that. I definitely imagined her sigh of relief once she closed the car door and was in the safety of my backseat.

Her reasons for being relocated were always the same, either a fight or destruction of property. And it never really was destruction. Just Happy getting caught mid-project. I'm sure there was a plethora of machines she worked on that were never brought to my attention because once she was finished with them no one was any the wiser or because she left them in better condition than she found them.

By the time I picked her up from the Lindens' she'd been through nine foster homes, but this time suddenly she was a vandal. Apparently she'd spray painted vulgarities on the walls of her school's gymnasium. The problem with this theory was that despite her bad attitude, violent behaviour, disdain for authority and ever-present anger, Happy Quinn did enjoy school – the academic aspects at least, not the social ones. Because school work was the only thing she enjoyed doing that she didn't get in trouble for. Not only that, but if she had wanted to act immature and vandalize the only place that encouraged her thirst for knowledge, surely she'd be smart enough to pull it off without getting caught. So why didn't I listen to her when she said she wasn't responsible? Sure numerous students said they saw her do it, but why didn't anyone question what those half a dozen teens, all from the same group of friends, were doing on the premises after hours?

Perhaps it's easy to blame the kid with the bad background. Even before Happy started acting out violently she had been forced to live with the stigma of being a bad seed. People would learn a little about her home life and then make assumptions about what she must be like because of it. I remember once early on noticing her wearing one of those braided friendship bracelets. Again we were in my car on our way to another new foster home. I suggested that maybe she'd be able to visit her friends sometime after she got settled into her new home.

"No, parents don't like having me around their normal kids."

I remember telling her that there was nothing wrong with her and that she was just like the other kids. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say. Either way I could tell she didn't believe me.

* * *

By the time Happy was eighteen she had been working part-time for a few years and had saved up enough money to be able to make rent. It was clear that she'd had enough and was more than ready to be aged out of the system. Looking back on our last meeting together I can still recall the way she sat across from my desk fiddling with my Rubik's cube creating different patterns.

"You're going to have a great life, Happy. I'm sure of it. And if you ever need any help–"

"Just give it up. You and I both know the statistics on how life turns out for people like me. I don't need you to lie to me. And I definitely don't need you making me any promises."

The young woman in front of me was angry. I wish I knew what she was thinking in that moment. I tried my hardest to see inside her the little girl I had so affectionately nicknamed Happy all those years ago. But it was to no avail.

"I don't think you're as hardened as you make yourself out to be. You're a keen observer and you feel things deeply. You've had a difficult life and maybe I'm partly at fault for that. I feel like I've failed you and I'm sorry for that."

Calculating eyes looked back at me. What was I waiting for? Her forgiveness? Did I really think I deserved that?

"You didn't. It's just the way people are. I wouldn't expect any different from anyone else."

So she wasn't angry at me, she was just angry at the world, and it was too late for me or anyone else to do anything about it.

She got up to leave, ignoring my outstretched hand.

"Before you go, can I ask you something?" She didn't respond but didn't leave either so I forged ahead, "All these years, why did you stick with Happy?"

At first it seemed as if she was going to ignore my question and leave, but at the last moment she turned around and said, "It let me pretend my dad couldn't find me because my name was different. Then after a while it just stuck."

I should have said something, offered her some sort of comfort, but all I could manage was silence, and anyways, maybe it was too late for anything I said to make a difference.

"Yeah, pretty idiotic, I know. It's a stupid name. Doesn't suit me at all."

And that was the last time I saw her.

* * *

Yes, if I could change only one thing it would be how things turned out with Happy. I'm not really sure why. In the grand scheme of things she was just one of countless kids wronged by the system, but for some reason she's the one who stands out to me now. Maybe it's guilt. From so early on it was clear how vast her potential was. And I did nothing to nurture it. So when a nurse takes pity on me and my loneliness and sends a young volunteer in to keep me company I do something I know I probably shouldn't. Initially when I ask he says no, it's wrong and probably illegal. But realizing that it's the only thing I actually want he eventually complies.

A few days later he's back, a manila envelope in hand.

"You found her." Suddenly I'm not sure why I want this. I know I won't like what I learn. But maybe I deserve to know what resulted from my continuous failure to act.

He moves my lunch aside and pours the contents of the envelope onto my tray table. They're photos, a couple dozen, and there she is.

She's in a diner with a group of people, all adults except for a boy about nine or ten wearing a birthday hat.

And here she is mussing his hair as he opens a newspaper-wrapped present.

There's one of her and the only other woman present posing together for a photo being taken by an older gentleman in a suit. All three have big smiles on their faces.

She and a man in a dress shirt and tie look only slightly annoyed after seemingly being forced to wear conical hats matching the child's. She's tugging at the string under her chin and he's rolling his eyes.

This one's got her squeezed between the other two men present as they appear to be singing enthusiastically while she covers her ears with her hands.

Somehow she looks both exactly the same as when I last saw her and like another person entirely.

The volunteer pulls up a chair by my bed and takes a seat to look through the pictures with me.

"So, Happy? That's an interesting name."

"It's a nickname that wound up sticking."

He picks up a photo that shows Happy wearing a fedora and laughing at something being said by one of the others_._ "Well, it suits her."

And he's right. It really does.


End file.
